FCDO Staffing

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I thank my right hon. Friend and predecessor for that point. Diplomacy and the nature of international relations are changing. We have to invest in future-facing resources, which means things like IT, most obviously, as well as ensuring that we have a network of experts across a wide range of fields, including commerce. In response to his former point, we already see a very close integration in London and around our overseas network of trade, development, aid and diplomacy. I can only assume that that will continue to be the case when it comes to our people.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I thank the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), for securing this urgent question. It is more than a year since my urgent question when the merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development was announced. Despite what the Minister says about this being seamless, we are hearing lots of reports that it is not going well at all, and surely that must create a degree of inefficiencies. Although we have maintained the International Development Committee, we have seen further cuts to aid. In my urgent question last year, I sought an assurance that there would be no forced redundancies. The Minister may not be willing to give us a number or a percentage of cuts, but can he assure us that the review in the spring will not involve compulsory redundancies?

[James Cleverly]

As I have said a number of times, the decisions about the future structure, prioritisation and orientation of the Department will be made by Ministers in due course and the details will come out in the new year.

I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Lady’s point about the merger: some of the most successful ODA-donating countries have merged Foreign and Development Offices. Prior to the merger of the Departments, I was a Minister across both of them, and I have found it easier to work with one set of civil servants in one Department than I did working across two sets of civil servants across two Departments. Our commitment is to retain our standing as a top-tier donor country, in respect of not just the scale of what we give but the sophistication of how we do it, and that will be enhanced through the merged process.